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We’ve confirmed with HTC the Vive Wireless Adapter won’t work with laptops at launch.

The official adapter starts shipping in September for $300 and promises to make both Vive and Vive Pro headsets wireless, assuming of course that the PC you use to render your virtual world has an open PCI-E slot to connect the accessory. Laptops usually lack that option, which makes using the adapter a problem. An HTC representative said they are looking into options “but it won’t be available at launch.”

We’ve seen the Vive Wireless Adapter in use at a couple different events from CES through to E3 and even in some multiplayer arrangements. If the adapter works well in real-world scenarios, it seems like the kind of accessory most Vive owners are going to want to add to their system. We’ll have to wait, however, to see how the accessory works over an extended period of time.

The adapter is set to start shipping on Sept. 24 with pre-orders going live Sept. 5 on Amazon, Best Buy and others.

Although zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine was released relatively early in the latest VR headset lifecycle (late 2016), it’s still one of the best games out there. Developer Vertigo Games is looking to recreate that success in a multiplayer arcade setting with Arizona Sunshine LB (ASLB) VR. We had a chance to take on massive zombie hordes with friends at Gamescom this year, and we lived to tell the tale.

The Arizona Sunshine multiplayer experience supports up to four players in a 10m x 10m space, but since we were in a slightly smaller 6m x 6m space, we went for three humans vs. thousands of undead. We strapped on our wireless adaptor-equipped Vives, picked up a couple of tracked Hyperkin blaster, and were transported to a military base being overrun by walkers.

In the below video you can see a similar setup that we tried at CES 2018, except this was just the original game’s horde mode, not ASLB:

Similar to the events in the Dead Man DLC, ASLB takes place before Arizona Sunshine, soon after the zombie apocalypse begins. While taking down as many undead as possible is your primary focus, the ultimate goal is to launch a nuclear missile to try and take out thousands of zeds clustered in the urban core.

Gameplay consists of lots of shooting as well as some puzzle elements as you work your way further and further down into the belly of the nuclear missile facility in order to reach the launch computer. There are a number of times when one person has to ride a platform away from the other team members in order to operate a lever or button while teammates cover them from afar. It’s all very tense, and proper teamwork is key in these situations. There are also a number of beam walks and small jumps and gaps to avoid while navigating the levels, and while you know there’s solid ground under your feet in the real world, those types of spatial puzzles are always powerful in VR because the brain wants to believe what the brain perceives.

Literally walking around in the environment is the best way to play VR as it’s highly immersive, and while there were some early walking animations which looked particularly stiff since the models’ knees didn’t bend yet, there’s still some time to go until the code is final, so we’re confident that will be improved before launch. To be honest, I was wary of getting an errant gun in the teeth when we first started playing, but the trackers worked well, so spatial awareness of my two live teammates wasn’t an issue, even with an HMD on.

Oculus is targeting Q1 2019 to launch its upcoming higher-end standalone VR headset, currently known by the code-name Santa Cruz. Multiple independent sources have said that Oculus has shared a Q1 timeline for wide release.

The headset is designed to function on its own without the need for a PC, similar to Oculus Go, but with cameras added for inside-out tracking of 6DOF head movement and two Oculus Touch-style controllers. The last time we went hands-on with Santa Cruz was at the Oculus Connect 4 conference last year. The release window lines up with the two year anniversary of the original Rift’s launch at the end of Q1 2016, March 28th.

When we asked Oculus for a comment on the release window, a spokesperson replied: “We can’t comment on future plans or announcements, but I can tell you that OC5 will be really exciting.”

That’s about all we expected them to say at this point. Oculus Connect 5 (OC5) is right around the corner on September 26th and 27th. and we expect official information then. One of the major topics up for discussion is porting Rift content to the Santa Cruz headset — which is something we’ve heard from multiple sources is a big focus for Oculus’ launch lineup on the new headset.

The porting process sounds like it is easier said than done because Santa Cruz running on its own wouldn’t be as graphically powerful as a Rift plugged into a high-end gaming PC. We haven’t seen specifications yet, but it’s safe to assume its capabilities as a standalone to be like a middle-ground between Go and Rift. That will likely help keep the cost down. We haven’t heard anything about a price range yet, but we hope the whole system together comes in under the $600 price of the original Rift headset alone.

We’ve also been told Santa Cruz works in a wide-range of environments, including outdoors, similar to Lenovo’s Mirage Solo headset. We recorded an outdoor video while wearing the Mirage Solo and it sounds like Santa Cruz will have the ability to enable a similarly “boundless” tracking system through its inside-out cameras as well.

We expect Oculus to publicly confirm the targeted release window as well as officially name the headset and talk about launch partners at next month’s Oculus Connect 5 conference in San Jose, CA.

Carbon Studio just announced last week its gesture-based spell-slinger The Wizards is coming to PSVR, so it was fitting the team was showing it off at this year’s Gamescom in Germany.

The PSVR game is pretty much the same as the PC version that was released earlier this year, with support for the Move controllers. And while I’m not a huge fan of Move, the Carbon team nailed the controls, and made the Move experience actually feel pretty darn intuitive.

If you haven’t played before, The Wizards sends you on a variety of quests in a fantasy setting. It’s basically a shooter with some puzzle elements, but you’re not shooting guns. As the name implies, you’re imbued with mystical powers that allow you to create shields, conjure fireballs, summon ice bows, and zap foes with powerful electric bolts.

To invoke a spell, simply perform specific gestures with the Move controller, such as twisting your wrist, pulling the trigger and moving your hand to the right to snatch a fireball from the ether, or pulling both triggers and crossing your hands to conjure an ice bow. It’s all quite fluid and elegant, and feels right at home in virtual reality.

The feeling and atmosphere of The Wizards also translates well to VR locomotion, and while there is fluid, direct movement by holding down the primary Move button, you can also just teleport because, well, you’re a wizard. I mean, if you got it, flaunt it.

The Wizards was a pretty game on PC headsets, and it looks beautiful on PSVR, as well. I made it a point to walk right up to the wall textures and check them out while playing the demo and was happily surprised by the level of detail such as pockmarks in the cut stone.

From what I played today, the team at Carbon nailed it with this PSVR port and it’s definitely going to be a must-play game if you have a PSVR. There just aren’t many games like it on that platform. The Wizards should offer up around five to six hours of gameplay, and while no specific release date has been set, it will be available sometime this autumn very soon.

If you want to learn more about The Wizards, be sure to read our Rift/Vive review from earlier this year.

The future of amusement parks has arrived. Something big is coming to LA—and it isn’t the dark and dreary Chuck E Cheese’s you may remember growing up as a kid. It also isn’t your local VR arcade of today either, which is often focused on screening individual VR games, an approach reminiscent of going to

Oculus CTO John Carmack says a local viewing feature is working for the Oculus Go but it is still several weeks away from being released to owners of the headset.

The feature should fill a major gap in Oculus Go functionality and allow friends and family to see the view from inside VR. The standalone Oculus Go started shipping in May for $200 and, since then, the headset has used a companion iPhone and Android app that makes setup easier. That app could do a lot more if it gets updated with this new feature.

It is working, but that still puts it several weeks out for users.

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 22, 2018

The more expensive Mirage Solo, running Google’s Daydream OS, is able to broadcast its view to a nearby Chromecast-enabled device in a seamless way. With Oculus Go, it can be hard to share the headset when you can’t see what the person in VR sees to help them if they get stuck. An update to the Oculus Go iPhone and Android apps could change that and make sharing the entry level VR headset easier.

Carmack’s tweets seem to suggest the update could arrive sometime around Oculus Connect 5 in late September. If not, I’d at least expect a formal update at the event. Keep in mind also that Apple rejects apps from time to time for a variety of reasons, recently rejecting Valve’s SteamLink app for example. It is highly unlikely that such a major feature update — to an app that’s already approved — would be stopped by Apple’s approval process, but it is a possibility worth noting nonetheless.

Oculus Connect 5 will be held in San Jose, California on Sept. 26 and 27.

Remember when you were a kid and would make shadow puppets, projecting a massive finger onto your ceiling that you’d pretend to prod yourself with? Or how about when you stare at a map of your country and imagine squashing yourself with your own fist? Fisherman’s Tale lets you do that in VR, and it’s one of the most mind-boggling experiences I’ve had inside a headset.

Announced last week, A Fisherman’s Tale is the latest experience from Innerspace VR, a studio behind two of VR’s most thoughtful apps, Firebird: La Peri and Firebird: The Unfinished. It’s the closest to an actual game the team has gotten so far, with genuinely brain-churning puzzles and a high degree of interactivity. But, crucially, it also doesn’t lose sight of what makes Innerspace’s earlier work so memorable, fusing the two together for an experience that promises to make the absolute best of VR.

In A Fisherman’s Tale you embody, well, a fisherman. But you’re puppetized, made of wood and confided to controlling strings, like a Pinochio that never got to become a real boy. Withdrawn in a reclusive lighthouse, you have to venture out to reach the top of the tower and turn on the light in order to safely warn boats. The way you go about doing that is quite fasincating.

The first minutes of the game’s first chapter is fairly straight-forward; clear a barred window and then open it with the use of objects around you. I’m told Fisherman’s Tale didn’t graduate from the LucasArts school of puzzle-solving, so I look around for logical ways to remove nails from boards and quickly discover a crowbar. When you do open the window, though, you see something you weren’t expecting – yourself.

Or rather, a bigger version of yourself, peering out of the same window, imitating your every move to perfection. What?

Turn around and you’ll see a scale model of the building you’re in sitting on the table with, yes, the same window open. Peer in and you’ll see mini-you. Lift the lid off of the set and big-you will be peering down from above. It’s about as surreal as VR gets and a moment of ecstatic discovery.

What to do with this new-found power? Well, what I said at the start of course. I completely lost any degree of professionalism as I proceeded to point down through the ceiling and witness my enlarged finger appear from above in VR. I stared up, slack-jawed as I attempted to poke myself in the face with my own wooden finger and cackled with laughter at the sight of mini-me trying to do the same down below. Trippy doesn’t even being to describe it.

This mechanic has inventive uses within puzzles, too. A giant anchor blocks the door to your exit, for example, so you just reach into the model world and take it out. A tiny crustacean, meanwhile, desires a captain’s hat. The one you find is obviously too big for him, but by throwing it out of the window, a smaller

Sony is finally offering a base PSVR package that includes everything you need to jump into any game on your PS4. Well, it is in Japan at least.

The company announced this week that a special bundle containing the headset, a PlayStation Camera and two PS Move motion controllers will go on sale on September 13th. Brilliantly, it’s called the ‘PlayStation VR Exciting Pack’ and costs 36,980 yen (about $335). It saves you about $70 instead of buying the headset and controllers separately.

One might argue that the image above is how it should have looked when PSVR launched back in October 2016.

This is the first base bundle we’ve seen to throw in the Moves outside of a limited Skyrim VR bundle last year. It’s great to finally see everything you need to play any PSVR game — many titles can only be played with two Move controllers — included as one package, though there’s no word on if Sony will bring it to other markets at this point in time.

PSVR’s shaping up to have a busy few weeks with the launch of Firewall: Zero Hour, Torn, Zone of Enders 2 and more now just a stone’s throw away. Let’s hope you have your own Move controllers at the ready.